


number forty-seven said to number three

by thingsyoumissed (orphan_account)



Category: The Cab
Genre: Fivesome, Group Marriage, Multi, picked group marriage just because I could
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-01-01
Updated: 2008-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-30 04:11:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/327582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/thingsyoumissed





	number forty-seven said to number three

Marshall inherits his dad's record collection when he moves out, and an ancient (in his mind) record player. He buys a cabinet for the whole setup and convinces Johnson to help him get it all hooked up, one afternoon in their last two weeks before tour, when everyone's simultaneously trying to stock up on sleep and being so excited about going on a tour where they're _headlining_ that they can barely sleep at all. They shuffle around, wiring and re-wiring, arguing about which album to listen to first. Johnson's insisting on the mint-condition _Let's Be Friends_ that Marshall is sure his dad only listened to twice at most when someone bangs on the door. It's Cash, it has to be, because he's the only person who ever pounds on a door when there's a working doorbell.

"Alex fucking Marshall and Alex fucking Johnson," he bellows when Marshall lets him in.

"That's my name, don't wear it out," Johnson replies, still holding up the album with Elvis' beaming face. "Marshall, dude, come on."

"No, fucker, the inaugural album will not be Elvis." Marshall watches Cash make a beeline for the lone box of records that they haven't unpacked yet. "I know there's some Duke Ellington in there somewhere. Find it."

"Fucking 'Sugar Rum Cherry'"," Johnson mutters.

Marshall can actually _see_ what's forming in Cash's head before he even opens his mouth, and he claps his hand over Cash's face. "Don't you even."

"What?" Cash asks, his lips moving against Marshall's palm, his eyes wide with manufactured innocence.

"There will be no Duke Ellington song title jokes," Marshall says sternly. Cash just rolls his eyes and licks his hand, and Marshall drops it before Cash can start trying to suck on his fingers, and flips him off. Then he wipes his hand on his jeans. Cash smirks at him.

Johnson holds up _Aloha From Hawaii_ and Marshall chokes. "Johnson, pick something that isn't Elvis or you're not getting laid for a week. I'll institute a ban. And I'll make sure everyone follows it. Even Cash." Cash looks confused at this. "What?" Marshall asks. "You're a slut."

"Fine," Johnson relents, returning the entire stack of Elvis albums to the box (Marshall intends to keep them in the closet, just to be safe, because he doesn't want to wake up some morning after Johnson's stayed over to the slow, mind-numbing songs of _His Hand In Mine_ , which Marshall is certain is in there somewhere) and sighing heavily. "Cream?"

"That's like, totally acceptable. You couldn't have gone with that first?"

"I wanted to torture you for a while." Johnson digs his phone out of his pocket. "We can't listen to Clapton without Ian, you know. And him and Singer are all attached at the fucking hip lately, so maybe we could order pizza later?"

"I hope they bring some weed," Cash says.

Marshall resigns himself to laying on the floor and waiting for the rest of his band to show up. They would have all ended up here anyway, he's sure, because they all have some weird psychic attachment-thing that does not allow more than two of them to be in one place without everyone else showing up unannounced and uninvited. It had even happened at the _grocery store_ once, Marshall remembers. He will never understand how Cash and Singer had figured out the rest of them were at Whole Foods. Maybe they'd bugged his car.

He's never been able to figure out how he ended up having a relationship with his entire band. And how it wasn't weird at all, not really. There were still girls. Not that Marshall has seen a girl naked lately, because he's Cash's favorite right now and it's hard to pick up girls when your bassist doesn't let you put clothes on to leave your apartment. He's pretty sure that he and Cash could pick up a girl together, but then there would be rumors all over the internet and Pete would be calling them constantly.

Johnson sets the album on the player but doesn't lift the arm, and for a minute they all listen to the sound of the turntable spinning. Then Cash crawls up next to Marshall and breathes on his neck. "Not now," Marshall mumbles, but only half-heartedly, and Cash never listens anyway, so Marshall turns his head to catch Cash's mouth. The doorbell rings while they're kissing but Cash doesn't let him pull away. Marshall hears Johnson's "You guys got here fast," and Ian's "Dude, we were only like three blocks away," and thinks _again with the weird psychic GPS system_ before Cash sucks on his tongue and he moans.

Cash pulls back, a satisfied grin on his face, and Marshall elbows him hard in the ribs. "Dudes, Clapton," Johnson says. He lowers the needle carefully down and Marshall holds his breath until the song starts.

"That's some classic shit, the way it was meant to be heard," Ian intones, sliding down onto the floor next to Cash, pulling Singer with him. "Fucking _sweet_."

Johnson sits down on Marshall's other side. "I guess as far as inaugural records go, it's not bad," he whispers in Marshall's ear. "It's no 'Jailhouse Rock', but..."

Marshall shuts him up with a kiss, biting at Johnson's lower lip. "Enough. About. The. Elvis. Records," he mutters, and Johnson smiles wickedly against his skin, hands slipping under Marshall's hoodie. Marshall can hear whatever nonsense Cash is saying to Singer and Ian, something about pot brownies and a keg of some weird imported beer, and then his words stop suddenly and there's moaning, and Cash's leg rubs against his. Marshall worries his teeth down Johnson's neck, licking and biting, until Johnson climbs on top of him.

"Are we getting pizza?" he hears Singer ask. Marshall turns his head. "Dude, we leave in two weeks, there's no Sofia's on the road."

"No cheese," Marshall and Cash say at the same time.

"I want chicken fingers," Johnson says against Marshall's shoulder.

Cash pinches him. "I won't kiss you if you eat them."

"Fine, I'll just kiss the non-vegans," Johnson replies, rolling his eyes.

"Marshall is with me in solidarity."

"I am not." Marshall is pretty fond of Johnson's kissing technique, and also pretty fond of annoying Cash. He attempts the first but Johnson rolls of off him and heads for the stack of phone books, suddenly intent on fried foods. Marshall's left a little cold in the air-conditioning, so he wiggles closer to Cash, who is currently caught up in a tangle of limbs with Singer and Ian. Singer crawls across Cash to wind himself around Marshall. "Much better," Marshall breathes.

Singer grins down at him. His breath smells like pot and cinnamon gum, and his shirt smells like Ian, and Marshall thinks those scents all together might be one of the best things in the world. "Did you bring weed?" he asks. "Cash Money was worried."

"Cash Mon-eeeeey!" Cash sing-songs, but half of it gets lost in Ian's kiss, and then Marshall's laugh gets lost in Singer's mouth, and Singer tastes like pot and sticky cinnamon sweetness, too.

Johnson announces, "Food will be here in forty-five minutes, including pizza without cheese for you lactose-intolerant lame-asses among us, and chicken fingers for me."

"Coke?" Ian asks.

"And a two-liter of Coke."

Singer pushes on Marshall's chest a little to lift himself up. "Onion rings?"

"And onion rings."

Marshall contemplates asking if Johnson ordered something totally unexpected, like salad, but doesn't want to throw him off his game. Not that he would be all that surprised if Johnson _had_ ordered salad, because Cash would eat it. "Since you're up, can you turn the record over?" he asks instead, and Johnson does.

Marshall's back is starting to hurt from laying flat on the wooden floor (he hasn't bought any throw rugs or whatever they're called), so he wiggles out from underneath Singer enough to sit up, which leaves kind of a space between him and Cash that Johnson immediately claims, laying his head on Marshall's stomach. "My spot," Singer says mournfully, cross-legged now between Marshall's knees. Johnson huffs and pulls him down roughly for a kiss while Marshall appreciates the way Singer folds over easily. Pete had called them all tiny and bendy once, and Marshall had been kind of offended at the time (who was Pete to talk?), but he's learned to appreciate the truth in that statement.

He winds his one hand in Johnson's hair and closes his eyes, tapping out the line of the song softly against Johnson's scalp. They should really all be packing, or maybe practicing, anything but laying on the floor of Marshall's apartment in a heap, listening to records. Lips skim over the pulse in his neck; he thinks it's Cash but can't be sure, but then Cash is whispering that he really wants to suck Marshall off so he knows it's him. "We don't have time for sex," Marshall says loudly, just so everyone gets the picture. "No time. Food is on the way."

"I didn't really want to get laid on an empty stomach anyway," Ian adds. " _Cash._ "

"Fine," Cash grumbles. "Then I need a cigarette. Or two." He sits up and Marshall sees him squinting at the rest of them, trying to decide who he wants to come outside with him, probably molest in front of Marshall's neighbor's windows. "Singer Alex, come with me," he pleads, and pulls Singer up by his hands.

"Way to resist, dude," Johnson says with a smirk, and Singer shrugs.

"I'll have you know, I am irresistible," Cash says as he tugs Singer towards the door.

"Pay for the food if it gets here while you're outside!" Johnson calls and Marshall snorts, because Johnson is the only one of them who ever seems to have any actual cash in his wallet. Singer probably has some Old Navy receipts and Cash has three condoms and Pete's business card, and insists that is all he will ever need. Marshall is not about to admit to anyone outside the band that Cash has a fairly valid point, except he should probably at least carry his Gold Card around with him just in case. Sometimes Pete doesn't answer his phone.

"Did you pack yet?" he asks Ian.

"I never unpacked from the last tour," Ian says. "I'll just buy some new socks and underwear and make up the rest as I go along." He smiles up at Marshall and Marshall wonders, not for the first time, how they ever got this far in the music business. "Did you pack?"

His bedroom is a huge mess of clothes and suitcases. "I'm working on it," he sighs.

"We're only going to be gone a month," Johnson reminds them. "And there's laundromats and shit along the way, come on. You don't have to pack thirty days' worth of clothes, Marshall."

"Dude, have you forgotten the three-week stretch last time where we couldn't _find_ a fucking laundromat?"

"There were six Wal-Marts," Johnson says dryly. "No wonder Ian doesn't bother to pack."

"There was also no place to move on the bus because we bought so many cheap t-shirts and crappy shoes." Marshall tugs on Johnson's hair as he says it. Johnson just grins up at him, and Marshall swipes his thumb over Johnson's lower lip. It's kind of pathetic how stupidly happy they all make him, he thinks. They've been doing this so long that he can't imagine _not_ doing it. For something that had started with an awkward thrust of Cash onto an anonymous hotel room bed (Marshall had done the shoving, and would never not think of it as awkward), a blowjob he would classify as pretty terrible (mostly because he'd been on the giving end - but Cash hadn't complained), and a series of escalating sexual dares that they were all too stupid and young to think about with anything other than their dicks.

Marshall is fairly certain that if any of them had given it some serious thought, they wouldn't be here right now, and right now, Marshall can't think of any place he'd rather be. He jabs Ian in the arm. "Dude, buy me a Mercedes for our anniversary."

"You don't even like them," Ian says, grinning. "When the fuck is our anniversary, anyway?"

"I think it depends on what you count as the beginning," Johnson answers, before Marshall can even open his mouth. "Marshall's a girl, so he counts the first time he kissed Cash, in that shitty motel in Florida. I, on the other hand, am a man, and I started counting when Singer called up that college radio station and asked if he could dedicate some Disney tunes to the rest of us."

Ian's eyes have gone wide at the memory. "That radio station made me glad I never went to college," he says, at the same time Marshall says, "You count 'A Whole New World'? And _I'm_ the girl?"

"A new fantastic point of view," Johnson deadpans. Marshall suppresses the desire to dig his thumbs into Johnson's ribs until he cries. Then the door bangs open and Cash and Singer spill through, their arms full of plastic bags and pizza boxes. 

"Food, thank god," Marshall breathes, scrambling away from people who talk about relationships using lyrics from animated movies. "You had money?" he asks Cash.

"Singer used his emergency fund. Now there's pennies in his sock."

Singer hits him in the back of the head. "Shut up, you fuck, I didn't put the change _back_ in my shoe."

They crowd around Marshall's kitchen table, arguing about who gets what and whether or not someone should eat the salad, since it's warm from sitting on top of the container of onion rings. Marshall finally shuts Cash up by putting it into the refrigerator and saying he can eat it later, and Cash slides close to him with a slice of pizza dripping sauce onto Marshall's floor, wraps his arm around Marshall's waist and mumbles, "I love your stupid face, Alex fucking Marshall."

Marshall ducks his head and grins, because really, this is just one of the many red-letter moments his life is made of, and if it means having to watch _Clambake_ on the bus and listen to jokes about his jazz idols, he can live with that. "I can dig it," he says out loud, nodding to himself. 

"Did you just fucking say what I think you said?" Singer asks, looking kind of horrified at the thought, and Marshall just stomps on his foot and grins wider.


End file.
